The Ancient Wall
by jazzlite
Summary: Priest Seto has intimacy issues. Ancient Egypt-style... Seto/Kisara


"Well, Seto?"

He grimaced at his colleague. "'Well' what?"

"Don't play dumb," Shada warned. He added softly, "This is a serious issue. Are you sleeping with the peasant girl?"

High priest stared at high priest. In the distance splashing liquid sounded through the palace corridors, perhaps slaves pouring out sour beer from the kitchens. The young priest's grim expression reminded Shada of the sour beer. He waited for his oncoming rebuttal.

"You're asking me," Seto began, breaking the gravitated silence, "if I'm fornicating with a pauper, well below my rank, with stone welts imprinted in her back. Those are serious accusations, Shada."

Should he believe him? The young priest stood tall in his garb, unyielding, threatening, even. Shada wanted to laugh. Instead he scowled at the inflated boy standing in front of him, stating, "Very well. But you should remember something: rumors can break a man in the eyes of the public. And with the deranged Bakura running amuck, Egypt looks to us now more than ever."

"Fantastic."

"Seto," Shada persisted. But the young priest turned away, walking in the direction of his quarters. He paused by an alabaster column, the sunlight drenching his lower body, his upper filmed by shade. Shada couldn't make out his hidden face when he said, "Sorry to cut into to your preaching time, but I have work to do."

He strode forward, pausing only once when Shada mentioned something focal.

"How did you know she had welts in her back?"

-

Seto wouldn't call his attachment with Kisara "love," necessarily. The word was said too much. It meant too much. It was too complicatedly simple in concept: love.

What he had with Kisara was anything but simple.

After their reunion that day in the market, he gradually began talking with her, since the girl had nothing else to do. Her company felt odd and familiar. They seemed to understand each other before anything could be said. He enjoyed the strange connection, whatever it was. Soon he realized Kisara was a woman. A beautiful woman. He kissed her days later.

Their first kiss was slow and sweet. Kisara enjoyed it, he could tell. The experience, overall, was pleasant. Their first sexual encounter mimicked the kiss in that respect. Slow. Sweet. Pleasant.

Uneventful.

Being in the same room with a nude Kisara lying on her back didn't necessarily direct the blood flow to his cock. Though when he was alone, and thought about her writhing beneath him, it excited him. His guilty pleasure. Not the girl, but the thought of the girl.

He wanted to feel that intimacy with her, in person, but couldn't. He was too controlled. He knew too much. He understood that essentially, people were alone, and needed to learn to be alone. He understood that romance was horseshit, its only institution to abate the whims of fools. Romance didn't win wars. It didn't keep food on the table. It kept others drunk and silly with libido. He would watch others fall in love, and played along if a girl fancied him.

It was like watching children play; he had better things to do.

When he first experienced an erection, the obvious solution was sex. He was twelve, and all his friends told him how good it felt. They recommended this wrinkly, middle-aged woman with frizzy brown hair and dark brown skin. Her kohl eyes gave her a sexual appearance.

Overall, he was in and out. He plunged, he pumped, he shot. He had better things to do with his time than get drunk off of physical love.

Ironically, this philosophy angered many brothels that charged by the hour.

Kisara, however, managed to challenge his method of sex. Because he truly cared about her. He didn't kiss her because he was horny. He wanted to get closer to her. She inexplicably attracted him, and he sought intimacy with her the only way he knew how.

Was this love? The word didn't seem desperate enough. It's concept seemed so different. A wall divided him from Kisara, driving him to insanity. He couldn't get around it.

Surely, love didn't have walls.

Kissing didn't break this barrier. So they loved together, but that still wasn't enough. Sleeping in the same bed wasn't enough. Seto became frightened of this growing obsession. He didn't want it to generate any further. For the first time he wanted to play this child's game of love and feel the hurt he undoubtedly would experience. But at the same time he didn't want to.

Because he had better things to do.

Seto decided one night as Kisara snuck into his bed that enough was enough. She touched his shoulder, but he pretended to sleep. "Seto," she whispered.

He ignored her.

"Seto. It's me, Seto. Please wake up."

"What do you want?' he snapped. He couldn't see her face but relished in the silence. He hurt her with one question. It shamefully pleased him.

"I… I came… at the time we set, to…"

"I figured this would happen. Here." He fumbled his hand around under the bed, and pulled out a broken broomstick, with a polished, curved wooden top. He placed it in her hands.

"What is this?" she asked.

"You can fuck yourself with it," he explained as he settled back into the bed sheets. "I'm not in the mood tonight."

Again there was that silence. That hurt. "I can't believe," she said with a shaky voice, "you would do something this awful."

She ran out of the room with unrivaled speed. Seto's stomach churned. Sourly.

-

They didn't sleep together for the next few days. But soon, somehow, Kisara found her way back into his bed. He admitted he missed her. Her smell. Her smile. But with her came the wall. Like a dark obstruction in his line of vision.

He couldn't stand it anymore. He needed answers.

The old man Aknadin proved useless. He continually asked imbecilic questions like what kind of love?

The kind that hurt when it ended.

Most kinds of love hurt when they end.

The kind that hurts forever, like losing a friend.

So, real love. Man and wife love.

No. There's a wall interfering with the "man and wife" love.

The old priest contemplated this concept. He said thoughtfully, "It sounds like a trust issue. A lack of openness on a lover's part." Seto remained silent. Aknadin mistook his pupil's intense gaze as a glare, and explained further to satiate the unsatisfied man, "Relationships tend to wither away without trust, especially highly intimate, sexual ones."

"Sounds reasonable." Aknadin wondered what game the young priest was playing at. Seto would never trouble himself with something so trivial in the past. So why the onslaught of ridiculous questions?

"How do you create a sexual desire?"

Such as that?

"What?" The old man blanched at the (_dumb_) question. But still, he had no reason to think the young priest was insincere in his quandary. Reluctantly, he answered, "Well… most men take to voyeurism. Seeing sexuality is exciting."

"So a man has to watch sex before having sex," Seto interpreted slowly. "And their wives are fine with this?"

Aknadin seemed confused. "I'm not sure I know what you're asking, Seto. Any moron with two testicles can have sex. It's not parting the Red Sea."

"I know that," He said irritably.

What was he trying to say? What did he want to ask?

"What makes sex satisfying?"

"Get out. I won't have you mocking me in my own library."

But the young priest persisted, aiming for clarification. "When a man wants to get closer to his wife, but sex is not enough… How can it be done? How can he break the barrier?"

Aknadin stared at him with a raised brow. "You know, there's a term for people like that."

"What is it?"

"Mental instability."

"Be serious," he demanded.

"Seto," the old priest said, rubbing his temples with slow precision, "I'm guessing you're in love." A gravitated moment passed. The air felt heavy all of a sudden, though Aknadin appeared unfazed. "A piece of advice: sex is the most intimate contact with another person. If it's not intimate then… perhaps the partners need to open up to each other."

"What?"

"Be vulnerable with each other. Trust each other. Love is a bond, beyond all else, and if you're searching to evolve a bond, then you need to love."

High Priest stared at high priest. The young man turned to leave the dusty, rotting library without a word to his mentor.

"That," Seto decided, "is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

But the conversation proved he was right; Seto didn't love Kisara. Not yet. Not with his lack of trust blockading the way.

He had a dream nights later, with Kisara sitting at a table, trying to cut open a piece of fruit. He watched her in the kitchen trying to peel its skin with her hands. He handed her a knife, and she happily sliced it. She held it to her mouth, and took a large bite out of the fruit, its juice flowing down her mouth like red blood.

Seto should have been appalled, even frightened, at the carnal seen. But he wasn't. He felt happy. He was glad Kisara got to taste the fruit she'd been trying to open for so long.

The night came when he finally loved her. Before she died.

She came to his room again, and he pulled her to his face. What a clumsy kiss that was… Her nose smashed against his and they sat there holding their noses until the pain subsided. Then he attacked her again.

He kissed her mouth again and again, whispering her name over and over. Again and again and over and over. He said, "I love you."

For the first time, he really enjoyed their sex. When he lied on top of her, watching her writhe, he saw her milky breasts, heard her groan his name. His balls slapped against her cunt harder than ever. He grabbed her breasts, clumsily hurting instead of arousing her. She laughed when he paused in embarrassment.

"Please Seto," she whispered. "Don't stop."

* * *

**A/N:** I wrote this while I was reading a book by Margaret Atwood. Brilliant writer... depressing as CUBA. And obviously this entire thing's about my own trust issues, along with a borderline, abnormal fear of commitment - but I blame my parents for all my troubles, just a like a good American citizen should :) Some shout-outs to m' betas Shadoom and YourPsycho - you guys are beautiful! Thank you!


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